The question of having additional children is deeply personal and is often influenced by religious beliefs, financial means, and whether you want to go through another round of late nights and dirty diapers. For a small number of people, it even involves the consideration of the future impact on the environment.

In response to a reader question, Pablo Paster of Salon provides an insightful response and concludes that, as with any choice, it’s up to the individuals involved. From a mathematical perspective, the average replacement rate is 2.1 children per couple. One for each of the parents and .1 to make up for childless couples. So, having two children means you are basically treading water, while additional kids means that your genetic legacy will live on.

Story from Salon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 3:24 am and is filed under Children, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.